last night we told you about how the conservative website breitbart.com reported that chuck hagel may have financial ties to a group called friends of hamas. we've got a problem here, folks. friends of hamas does not exist, and the story is bogus. yet the folks at breitbart are not only sticking to the report, they're attacking anyone who even questions it. this is the way conservative media operates these days in the business world. worse yet, instead of throwing water on these baseless stories, elected officials are fueling the fire by responding to them. senator rand paul said he found hagel's possible tied to a non-existent group concerning. and earlier this week senator lindsey graham of south carolina demanded that hagel respond to a rumor about him published by another right-wing blog. in both cases the claims had absolutely no merit. yet pushing these stories helped the right-wing media and republican lawmakers further their agenda. smear hagel and undermine ultimately president obama. "the new yorker" weighed in on this troubling development earlier and they wrote, "at its be